Notes from the Consultant’s Jungle

By- Bob Landström

Notes from the Consultant’s Jungle header image 4

Green Data Centers: Some things are easier than others

January 7th, 2010 · No Comments · Uncategorized

When recently interviewed for a magazine article, I was asked about Green initiatives by data center operators.  There are lots of innovative techniques for reducing power consumption in data centers, and lots of ways to apply renewable resources.  The fact of the matter is that for the data center operator, some of the options are [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:·····

Physical Security for Cloud Data Centers

December 29th, 2009 · No Comments · Business Continuity Planning, Data Center, Data Centers, Disaster Recovery Planning, IS Security

As I’ve watched the momentum of the Cloud, it’s caused me to reflect upon earlier discussions about data center physical security.  It’s long been my opinion that physical security will soon emerge (or re-emerge) as a top issue in data center planning, since businesses and consumers alike are increasingly reliant on the data and transaction [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:·····

Wind Power for Data Centers

December 22nd, 2009 · No Comments · Business, Data Center, Data Center MEP, Green Data Center, Green IT

The challenge in using green energy alternatives such as wind or solar power in data centers is power density.   Data centers consume a lot of power with respect to their physical footprint, so they need very large solar arrays or large wind turbine farms to generate the necessary power for the facility.  Consequently, the amount [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:····

Shell Building Property as Data Centers: When to Just Walk Away

November 25th, 2009 · No Comments · Business, Business Continuity Planning, Data Center, Data Centers

Many firms have gone looking for core/shell property with the intent of renovating these structures for use as a data center.  These projects are very capital intensive, and in many cases the benefits of having the existing structure are almost nil when viewed in the context of the broader project plan and budget.  However, many [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:··

Jim Cramer? C’mon Man!

October 25th, 2009 · No Comments · Business, Business Continuity Planning, Data Centers, Disaster Recovery Planning, Mergers and Acquisitions, Uncategorized

Well, now I know why I’ve never come out on top whenever I buy one of Jim Cramer’s recomendations.
In a recent (10/22/2009) Mad Money piece on CNBC, Jim Cramer used the Equinix acquisition of Switch and Data to make the point that data centers are obsolete.  In his diatribe about why anyone with Equinix stock [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:····

Where should we build that data center?

October 17th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Business, Business Continuity Planning, Data Center, Green Data Center, Green IT, IS Security, IT Governance

When launching a new data center build project, where the data center will be located is a fundamental issue. There are many factors in deciding where the data center will be, but all of these factors can arguably be consolidated into two issues- Risk and Cost.
We mention risk in terms of Risk Management. [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:·····

Cloud World: Recap on the August event in San Francisco

August 17th, 2009 · No Comments · Container Data Centers, Data Center, Data Center MEP, Uncategorized

This year’s Cloud World conference was a mashup of three industry conferences-  Open Source World, Next Generation Data Center (NGDC), and Cloud World.  Even with the combining of three (formerly) major industry events, the attendance volume still only merited the West wing of the Moscone Center.
It’s easy to blame the low attendance on the economy, [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:···

The Resilient Dynamic Data Center

June 25th, 2009 · No Comments · Business Continuity Planning, Data Center, Data Center MEP, Disaster Recovery Planning, Green Data Center, Green IT

I attended the 2009 IT Roadmap Conference in Atlanta,
Georgia this week and sat in on the presentation by
Johna Till Johnson of Nemertes Research, entitled
“Building a Resilient Dynamic Data Center.” The presentation
was a summary of hundreds of hours of discussions
with data center operators and enterprises with [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:·········

Uptime Institute Data Center Tier Classifications: Time for a Refresh?

June 1st, 2009 · No Comments · Business, Data Center, Data Center MEP, Disaster Recovery Planning

Posted by Bob Landstrom
Enterprises have embraced the data center tier classification system developed by the Uptime Institute for evaluating their own data center facilities and those of potential colocation and hosting providers.
The subject of facility availability has matured over recent years.  The mind set has matured from recognition that existing IT facilities were a problem [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:··

Container Data Centers: “Waiting for Godot” meets “The Price is Right”

April 25th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Business, Container Data Centers, Data Center

Regular readers of this blog will know that we are strong advocates of container data centers as a step toward modular data center design and as a facility component for extremely dense data processing.  Earlier posts talked about 2008 as a breakout year for containers (it wasn’t) and containers used as facility components in cargo [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:···